Obasan By Joy Kogawa Essays - Japanese Canadian Internment, Obasan

Obasan By Joy Kogawa Today, society has become a boisterous world of communication. From telephone conversations to live Internet chat and e-mail, the world has never before been quite so in touch. In the novel Obasan, by Joy Kogawa, Naomi Nakane does not have technology to communicate. Instead, she faces the dilemma of communicating at all. From her family, Naomi is shown the many faceted truths of speech and communication. From strong, silent Obasan, to stubborn, resolute Aunt Emily, Naomi finds that one can correspond with others through silence as well as through speech. As a child, Naomi spends much of her life in non-communicative silence, only to help further the distance between herself and her mother. As Naomi grows into womanhood and beyond, she discovers that in speech lays understanding and, unfortunately, pain and sorrow. Joy Kogawas tale of Naomi Nakane shows how one young girl can live a tortured life and find peace living life in between silence speech. Naomis relationship with Obasan is an influential one, molded from love, respect, and understanding. Naomi describes Obasans way of communication best when she say declares, The language of her grief is silence. She has learned it well, its idioms its nuances. Over the years the silence with her small body has grown large and powerful(Obasan 17). Obasans silent stance provides a firm starting point for Naomi to return to when she needs to find her bearings. Obasan provides Naomi only positive reinforcement when it comes down to determining the right and wrongs of silence. Obasan used her silence to protect the children from the many faceted horror known as truth. The truth behind Naomis mother was requested to be kept from Naomi and her brother, but it was also potentially damaging to them as well. The memories were drowned in a whirlpool of protective silence For the sake of the children, calmness was maintained(Obasan 26). Aunt Emily believes that the only way to live at peace in the present, you must live in peace with your past. Emily gets this across to Naomi when she goes on a rant and says You have to remember. You are your history. If you cut any of it off youre an amputee. Dont deny the past. Remember everything. If youre bitter, be bitter. Cry it out! Scream! Denial is gangrene. Look at you, Naomi, shuffling back and forth between Cecil and Granton, unable to go or stay in the world with even a semblance of grace or ease(Obasan 60). Unfortunately, for the quiet Naomi, Emily also believes that in order to be at peace with your past you must stand up and yell at those at fault for reconciliation. Emily shows that her beliefs remain contingent upon facts, and that everyone needs to be on the same page before healing can begin. It matters to get the facts straightReconciliation cant begin without mutual recognition of the facts, she said. Facts? [said Naomi] Yes, facts. Whats right is right. Whats wrong is wrong. Health starts somewhere. (Obasan 219) Naomi cannot comprehend the angle with which her aunt approaches life. While Naomi may believe reconciliation is in order, she is only discouraged when she looks to see where speech has placed her Aunt Emily. If Aunt Emily with her billions of letters and articles and speeches, her tears and her rage, her friends and her committeesif all that couldnt bring contentment, what was the point (Obasan 50). Naomi becomes more and more frustrated when she sees the futile efforts of her Aunt. Albeit, she does believe that what her Aunt is doing is important for her Aunt, she cannot see the use if the results of such hard laborious tasks go for naught. All of Aunt Emilys words, all her papers, the telegrams and petitions, are like scratchings in the barnyard, the evidence of much activity, scaly claws hard at work. But what good do they do, I do not know-those little black typewritten words-rain words, cloud droppings. They do not touch us where we are planted here in Alberta, our rots clawing the sudden prairie air. The words are not made of flesh. Trains do not carry us home. Ships do not return again. All my prayers disappear into space.(Obasan